Twitter Counter affirms that its service was attacked for what seem to be political reasons.

Users are assured that their sensitive user information is not compromised.

15 MARCH 2017, AMSTERDAM, NL

Summary

Twitter Counter, one of the prominent analytics services for Twitter marketing professionals, has been hacked and it is believed the attack is part of a wider politically-motivated attack targeting Dutch and German websites and services. The Amsterdam-based company has since apologised in a statement and assures its users that sensitive information have not been compromised.

Twitter Counter is one of the prominent analytics services for Twitter marketing professionals, tracking most active Twitter accounts and serving more than 2 million users.

This lasted for approximately two hours, during the early hours of Wednesday in US timezones.

It consisted of prominent Twitter accounts such as Forbes, Amnesty International, Unicef USA and BBC United States tweeting messages in Turkish, accusing the Netherlands of Racism and supporting Turkey’s president, Erdogan. The background to this is political tension between Ankara and the Netherlands, which culminate in the Dutch elections held today.

It appears that the attack affected a number of accounts using this service as well as other Twitter accounts through additional third-party applications and direct hacking of Twitter accounts.

The attack seems to be a part of a wider politically-motivated attack targeting Dutch and German websites and services. Earlier this week, the Turkish hacker forum have infiltrated hundreds of Dutch websites through the hosting company, Versio.

Twitter Counter proceeded to block access to their services to curb any further abuse. The company is also closely working with Twitter and will keep the service at limited functionality until safety measures are in place.

The Amsterdam-based company has since apologised in a statement and assures its users that private and critical information, such as credit card details and account passwords, was never compromised because of the company’s policies of not storing those on its servers.

Quotes

"Twitter Counter is conducting an investigation into the matter and we’ve already taken measures to prevent abuse of our users’ accounts. As you may know, today is an important day for the Netherlands and taking into consideration the latest political events, we believe this attack on us today is not a mere coincidence but rather, it’s a part of a bigger political offensive at Dutch online targets.
We are deeply sorry for the abusive posts which were posted via our service and we sincerely apologize to our affected users. We are committed to taking all the necessary security measures and precautions to avoid such attacks in the future. For that purpose, we will keep our service at minimal functionality until these measures are fully in place."
Omer Ginor, CEO of Twitter Counter

Spokespeople

Download PDF

About Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter is a social analytics company headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Based on traffic metrics, it is the leading global stats provider for Twitter accounts, providing free statistics over 350 million Twitter accounts. It is also a top tier Twitter marketing tool providing deep Twitter marketing analytics to brands and agencies.